I’m not a big meat eater, but once in a while I really enjoy a nice juicy steak. That said, I find steak just on its own, truth be told, a bit banal. But here’s a steak with a difference, tagliata di manzo al pepe nero.

A tagliata, as you may know, is Italian for a steak that has been well seared but usually served very rare, sliced and accompanied by various toppings or a sauce. In the most classic version of tagliata, the sliced steak sits on a bed of arugula and is topped with curls of freshly shaved parmigiano-reggiano and good drizzle of olive oil. I find the combination of flavors, as simple as they are, sublime. Along with bistecca alla fiorentina, it’s one of Italy’s greatest contributions to steak cookery.

Tagliata di manzo al pepe nero is a heartier riff on the classic recipe, more apt for the cooler months. In this dish the steak is encrusted in cracked black pepper and accompanied by braised fennel in a creamy gorgonzola sauce. When an Italian friend recently described this tagliata to me and mentioned it as one of his favorite dishes his mother makes, I knew I had to try it!

Besides being delicious, this tagliata takes only minutes to prepare. And since you cook it entirely on the stovetop, you don’t need a grill or fair weather, either.

Whether you’re a full time carnivore or a part time one like me, it’s definitely worth a try.

Ingredients

Serves 2-3

1 boneless steak, at least 1 inch and weighing about 400-600g (about 1 to 1-1/2 lbs) (see Notes for guidance on cuts)
1 medium fennel bulb, about 200-300g (7-10 oz)
75g (3 oz) mild gorgonzola, cut into cubes
1 shallot, finely minced
1 clove garlic, lightly crushed but left unpeeled
olive oil
butter
salt
a generous pinch of whole black peppercorns
a sprig of fresh parsley, finely minced (optional)

Directions

Prepping the steak

Remove the steak from the fridge and let it come back to room temperature, at least 30 minutes. Place the peppercorns in a mortar and pestle, working them until they have all cracked but not ground. Sprinkle the steak on all sides with the cracked pepper and salt. Let rest for an hour or so.

Prepping the fennel

Take the fennel bulb and cut off the stems. Cut it vertically into quarters and slice off the base from each quarter. Slice each quarter thinly from top to bottom so you end up with thin strips.

In a small skillet or sauté pan, melt a good knob of butter in a drizzle of olive oil, then add the shallot and let it sauté gently for a minute or so. Add the fennel, along with a few drops of water into the pan. Cover and simmer very gently until the fennel is just tender, about 2-3 minutes. Uncover and if there’s any residual liquid, raise the heat and cook it off, taking care not to brown the fennel at all. Remove from the heat and set the fennel aside.

Searing the steak

Heat a skillet (preferably of carbon steel) over a lively flame until quite not but not yet smoking. Add a drizzle of olive oil and the garlic clove. Let the garlic sauté just until it begins to brown, then remove it.

Now add the steak. Sear on both sides, until nice and golden brown, about 2-3 minutes per side. (If you have an extra thick steak you can also briefly sear the sides.) Remove the steak and let it rest for about 5 minutes, covered with aluminum foil.

Making the sauce

While the steak is resting, deglaze the skillet with the wine or brandy. Lower the heat and add the fennel, along with the gorgonzola. Simmer very gently until the gorgonzola has melted into a creamy sauce. Turn off the heat.

Serving

Uncover the steak and slice it crosswise on a slight angle. Lay out on a serving plate, arrange the fennel around the slices and top with the sauce.

Serve immediately, if you like sprinkled with additional cracked pepper to lean into the spice and minced parsley for color.

Notes

For recommendations on the best and most typical cuts for making tagliata, see this post. In short, there are many fine choices, though the most classic cut would be a New York strip. Whatever the cut, the steak should be at least 2.5cm/1 inch thick, so it has time to develop a good sear on the outside without overcooking on the inside.

A true tagliata is served very rare. Hence the short times given here, with the understanding you’ll be cooking them over high heat to get a good sear. You can add a minute of two if your steak is extra-thick or if your steak is extra well marbled.

Besides the usual tips for searing steak, which you can find here and here, the only other point I’d suggest is to be careful to cook the gorgonzola only as long as it takes to melt. Like many blue cheeses, gorgonzola develops an overly strong taste if you cook it too long, which would overwhelm the other flavors in the dish. And be sure to choose gorgonzola dolce—which is mild and creamy. Aged gorgonzola is too sharp and won’t melt properly.

By the way, I never throw out the fennel stems. Personally I like munching on them as a refreshing snack. You can also safe them for making a pasta con le sarde or adding them to a court bullion for poaching fish.

Changes I made the recipe

Fiddler that I am, I couldn’t resist making a few changes to my friend’s mother’s recipe to suit my own tastes and preferences. First off, the original recipe calls for making the entire dish in a single skillet. Since I like a good sear on my steak, which requires a flame high enough to burn the residue from the initial braise, I decided it would braise the fennel separately.

Second, while the original recipe called for marinating the steak with the pepper only and only for 30 minutes. I decided to pre-salt the steak. I find a pre-salted steak is much tastier than one that has been salted during cooking or at table.

I’ve also doubled the marination time. Salt will initially draw out liquid from the steak, but if you leave it for long enough, the salt will have time to penetrate and the juices will be reabsorbed back into the steak.

There are all sorts of “rules” on how long this can/should take, with times ranging from as little as 30 minutes and as long as 24 hours. But I find 45 minutes to an hour works well for this dish, where the pepper could become overwhelming if you extend the marination time too long.

I also increased the amount of gorgonzola from 50g to 75g, because… gorgonzola.

Finally, the original recipe doesn’t call for deglazing the pan with wine or brandy. Call me a traitorous francophile if you want, but I think that improves the dish, coaxing all that wonderful flavor from the fond you get with a good sear. (I suspect many Italian home cooks would brown the steak in a nonstick pan over a high-ish flame, which doesn’t produce a fond anyway.)

Variations

If you’re not a fan of fennel, feel free to substitute other seasonal vegetables like radicchio (the Treviso variety works best if you can find it) or thinly sliced mushrooms. These veg you can sauté uncovered, with no need to add water.

Post scriptum

Tagliata di manzo al pepe nero is an interesting example of a kind of “natural” fusion cooking that day to day chefs engage in without much conscious thought or fuss. This dish isn’t particularly Neapolitan in the traditional sense. And it owes an obvious debt to France’s steak au poivre, albeit with the addition of some distinctively Italian touches. It only goes to show that Italian cookery, as it actually takes place in today’s Italian homes, is neither as tradition bound nor as hermetically sealed from foreign influences as you might think.

And that got me to thinking. When you’ve been blogging for as long as I have, with nearly 700 recipes under your belt, one of the biggest challenges is deciding what to blog about. I’m thinking about starting a series of occasional blog posts (a bit like my annual tribute to Italian diaspora cooking in October but perhaps more frequent. where I publish the favorite home recipes of Italian and Italian-adjacent friends and acquaintances. Regular readers and subscribers, what do you think? Would you be interested in such a series? And if you have a favorite family recipe, feel free to send it in!

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